


She Used to Be Mine

by clearascountryair



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Literally so much angst, because I'm not that cruel, with a line of fluff or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearascountryair/pseuds/clearascountryair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes life just slips in through a back door<br/>And carves out a person<br/>And makes you believe it's all true<br/>And now I've got you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Used to Be Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you agentcalliope for beta-ing this!
> 
> The song in the summary and beginning is "She Used to Be Mine" by Sara Bareilles from Waitress and don't listen to it while driving and thinking about Jemma Simmons because you'll probably start crying on the highway or something

  _She’s imperfect, but she tries.  She is good, but she lies.  She is hard on herself.  She is broken and won’t ask for help.  She is messy, but she’s kind.  She is lonely most of the time.  She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie._

_She is gone._

_But she used to be mine._

* * *

 

Jemma slipped quietly through the hall, holding her robe tightly around herself.  Fitz would still be in the lab, but it had been a long day and she just wanted to curl up in his bed, wearing his jumper, and sleep until he woke her.

 

(Though she’d be content with him just falling asleep beside her)

 

When she got to his bunk, she immediately shed her robe and grabbed the gray jumper haphazardly thrown on the foot of his bed.  She hugged it to her chest for a moment, breathing in the smell of him (and, faintly, of the previous night’s curry).  With a soft sigh, she pulled it over her head and walked over to his mirror to do something about her hair.  She’d have to get a second hairbrush to keep in his room.  She was running a finger over the dark circles under her eyes when she noticed, tucked up in the top right corner of the mirror, a photograph she hadn’t noticed there before.

“What a dork,” she mumbled affectionately as she leaned in to examine it closer.  It was an old picture of the two of them, they hadn’t even been twenty.  They had gone back to Sheffield together for her brother’s wedding.  Fitz was looking straight at the camera, mouth open and eyes wide in surprise, her brother half in the frame, looking at Fitz and laughing.  Jemma herself was looking down at Fitz, having jumped onto his back, crashing what would have otherwise been a lovely picture.  Her face was pink and sweaty from dance and drink and she could still hear her granny scolding her mother for not having raised a proper lady.  She laughed a little to herself, remembering how red Fitz’s ears had turned and how flustered he had become, though he had still reached back and grabbed her legs for support, and allowed her to stay.  She wondered if he loved her even then.  Looking at the redness in her own cheeks, and remembering how humiliating she used to find that picture, she wondered if maybe she had been in love with him.  

They had been so terribly awkward then, unable to carry on a proper conversation with anyone but each other.  But it hadn’t mattered to them, because they didn’t need anyone else.  They had been so happy, so hopeful.  It was why, in part, they had joined SHIELD in the first place.  To help people.  To save the world.  It would be easy, they had realized after only two and some months of knowing each other, because together, there was no problem the couldn’t fix.  Collateral damage and sacrifice were the worries of others, of people without all the answers.  The idea that those worries could become their own never really  crossed their mind.  They were going to do good, because they _were_ good.  She believed so strongly in her fight, that nothing could stop her.

She tore her eyes from the picture of her younger face to the mirror, to look at the one she wore today.  For the first time, Jemma felt old.  Her eyes flickered between herself and the person-- child really-- she used to be.  If she closed her eyes, she could still see her, the girl with the bright brown eyes, saturated in curiosity and excitement, the long brown hair curled meticulously at her shoulders.  Buttoned blouses, crisp ties, lipsticked smile.  The type of girl who did everything she could not just to be good, but to bring it.  But the woman in the mirror wasn’t her.  There was no brightness in her eyes.  Her hair fell flat and unkempt beside her face.  The jumper was the only thing she wore and the only thing familiar in the mirror, and it wasn’t even her own.  She tried to smile, to find the long lost excitement, but the desperation she saw shattered her.  Her heart pounded in her chest, overwhelmed by the lack of familiarity.  She didn’t even realize Fitz had entered the room until she felt his hand on her cheek, turning her towards him.  She blinked at him, and realized she was crying.

“Hey,” he whispered, wrapping his other arm around her waist.  “What happened?”

Her lips moved silently for a moment, trying to find the words.  “Do you,” she began, surprised by how much her voice shook.  “Do you think she would hate me?”

Fitz cocked his head in confusion.  “Who?”

Unable to form the word, to say it out loud, she nodded towards the picture.  “I...I think she would.  I think...I think she would be so terribly disappointed.”

To her relief, Fitz didn’t immediately scoff at her silliness.  Instead, he asked, “Why?”

“She was so...hopeful.  She was good.”

“You _are_ good.”

Jemma choked out a little laugh and shook her head.  “You’re biased, you love--” _her_.

And every last dam seemed to break.  Again her heart began to race and the tears fell so hard she forgot how to breathe.  She could hear Fitz’s voice repeating her name again and again and again, but it sounded far away, miles away, years really.

“I’m not _her_ ,” she choked.  “I’m not her and one day, you’ll wake up and you realize I’m not her and I’m not good and I’ve never done anything to deserve you.”  She broke off, gasping for air, and catching her breath, whispered, “She was so happy and she deserved it.”  

It was only then that she became aware of Fitz’s forehead pressed against hers, his tears falling to merge with her own.  His hands came up to cup either cheek, squeezing almost too hard but she melted into it.

“I love you,” he said, and she shook her head.

_What have I done to deserve it?_ she wanted to ask, and the words must have ghosted past her lips, because he dropped his hands from her face to encircle her waist and pick her up.  Unthinkingly, she wrapped her legs around him and allowed him to carry her over to his bed, laying her down gently, as though she might break, and sitting beside her.  She shut her eyes, trying to stop the endless flow of tears.  His fingers rubbed up and down her arms and, when her breathing finally calmed, took the hem of her jumper ( _his_ jumper) and slowly pulled it up over her head so that she was lying bare before him.  She could feel his breath on her face as his lips softly brushed over her right eyebrow, and then her cheek, and then opening her eyes, she watching him press his lips to the puckered pink lines and never fully faded bruises across her abdomen.  He sat up next to her and, when she allowed herself to meet his gaze, smiled through his tears.

“You live.”

She swallowed, fresh tears prickling in her eyes.  Never before in her whole life had she felt herself so full of emotion.  She wanted to respond, but words failed her, so she again shut her eyes and reached out for his hand, immediately finding it.  He continued.

“He loved her,” he said, gesturing back to the picture.  “He was a bit dense, so it took him a couple more years to realize it.  But he did.  You’re _not_ her anymore, Jemma.  But I’m not him.  With the shit we’ve gone through, we’re not kids anymore.  We _were_ good then, but we’re better now.  They were so naive, Jemma.  And then they went through trauma after horrible trauma and now we’re here, but we’re alive.”

She looked at him, so raw and honest and, she was sure, as completely in love as she was.  Words half begged from the lab not so long ago suddenly rung in her ears.

_I would do_ anything _…_

Slowly, she pushed herself up and climbed into his lap, not caring that she was completely naked.  She pulled her legs to herself, curling in a ball and nuzzling her head beneath his chin.

“Fitz?”

“Yeah?”

“I wouldn’t change it.  If I could go back and start over, if I never had to lose anyone, never be hurt or betrayed, only I’d have never met you, I wouldn’t.”

He squeezed her tightly.  “I think she’d be proud.  Not just of how brave you are, Jemma. But because you’re still hopeful.  More than anyone I know.”

“I’m not.” And the tears began anew.  “I gave up on you!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I _did_! I did.  I tried and I tried and I couldn’t believe there was a way to come back to you!”

“Jemma!” She fell silent at the sharpness of his voice.  “Jemma, you still came.”

She looked at him, confused.

“That flare could have been anyone or anything.  And you still knew it was me.” He nodded, smiling.  “Deep down, you still knew.”

She nodded, trying convince herself that what he said was true.  For several minutes, they sat there in silence, holding each other and relying to convey the feelings they couldn’t say.

_I hope I can make you happy one day._

_I hope you can love the woman you are as much as I do._

“Do you think we could ever be them again?” she asked.

“Do you want to?”

She thought for a moment before shaking her head.  “No.”

He took her chin and tilted her face up to his.  “You are the most amazing person I have ever known,” he said.  “And I love you.”

“I love you,” she echoed and kissed with all that she had.

She wasn’t that girl anymore.  But she had _him_ , so maybe, just maybe it was better to be content with simply being.

 

(And if her being, as it long had been, was inextricably interwoven with his...well, she could be very happy with that).

 


End file.
